Phil Rizzuto: Baseball's paisan with pizzazz

Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, circa 1990. The television camera eyes a lovely belle.

“You know, she reminds me of that old song, 'A Pretty Girl is Like a Memory,'” says broadcaster Phil Rizzuto.

Curt Smith

Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, circa 1990. The television camera eyes a lovely belle.

“You know, she reminds me of that old song, 'A Pretty Girl is Like a Memory,'” says broadcaster Phil Rizzuto.

Partner Bill White pauses. “Scooter, I think that's Melody."

“Really?” Phil marvels. “How do you know her name is Melody?"

Recently, the Yankees prosopopeia died at 89. Holy cow (Phil’s trademark)! What a huckleberry (his pet phrase)! Smaller than the game, he made baseball seem larger than it was.

For six decades, Rizzuto was loved in Batavia and Brighton: an original, a presence, as player, then announcer. Bad game, good game, Phil meant a fun game: more play actor than play-by-play man, baseball's paisan with pizzazz.

Leave it to the Scooter to be born in Brooklyn. At 16, he tried out for the Giants and Dodgers. "Get a shoe box," sniffed Brooklyn's Casey Stengel. "That's the only way you'll make a living." Phil phoned the Yanks, signed, and began at Bassett, Va.

"Bassett!" said Rizzuto. "Sounds like I'm swearing at somebody." Holy cow! Cows draped its hill. "The players told me that the front legs of the cows were shorter than the back because they were always on the hill. And I believed them. With my short legs, I've always had an affinity with cows.” A player named him "Scooter": "Man, you're not runnin', you're scootin'."

In 1941, several veterans gave Phil a cold shoulder. Hurt, the 5-foot-6 rookie shortstop approached another star. "They’re not snubbing you," said Lefty Gomez. "They just haven't seen you yet." He became hard to miss, superbly fielding, bunting and hitting behind the runner. "My best pitch," said Vic Raschi, “is anything the batter grounds, lines or pops in his direction."

Released in 1956, the Scooter next year joined radio/TV’s Mel Allen and Red Barber: to Phil, “a thorn between two roses.” For a time he did two innings daily. "He'd leave in the seventh or eighth," said Allen. "Red and I'd finish." One game went into extra innings. "And now to take you into the 10th, here is ... here is": Rizzuto was already on the George Washington bridge.

In 1968, he became lead announcer. An inning, George Vecsey wrote, might link birthday greetings via “movie reviews, golf tips, war memories, fearsome predictions of … thunder” to allergies and insects. Increasingly, the more character than Stepford voice became his own best subject matter.

Bob Costas probed Scooter’s scorecard. "I've seen a lot of ways to keep score. What's WW?" he said. Rizzuto: "Wasn't watching." Another day Carmel DiPaolo, 90, wrote a letter. He replied, “Before it gets too late. She might not be with us the whole game" – going to bed or the great beyond, Phil didn’t say.

In 1985, the Yanks marked his birthday by giving a cow named Huckleberry, who stepped on his foot, decking him. Soon Scooter began waving from the second deck. "You know, Mussolini used to do this." A visitor arrived from San Jose. "I love San Jose. What's that song?" Someone began Dionne Warwick's tune, "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" Amended Phil: "No, it isn't San Jose. It's Phoenix."

Castile heard Phil read a long list of birthdays. Interrupting, White asked, “Hey, don’t you have a name in there that doesn’t end in a vowel?” Canandaigua saw Rizzuto begin a broadcast: “Hi, everybody, I’m Bill White. Wait a minute!” A Hindu "or Indian or something” wrote a letter "beefing about that Holy cow,” rued Scooter. “He said in India the cow is sacred, and I shouldn't say such a thing." Love that Phil: If it's sacred, he said, what was wrong with, "Holy cow!"?

In 1994, the most popular voice to ever darn the pinstripes made Cooperstown as a player. The Rizzutos took a trip to Europe. At the Vatican, Pope Paul II changed his schedule for an audience: “as close to God,” said Phil, “as you can get." Next August fueled his sense of time running out. Mickey Mantle's death of alcoholism "just hit me." He returned in 1996, then retired again.

A year later critic Richard Sandomir wrote, "Where are you, Scooter? We miss [your] mirth" – a once-broadcast thorn making of baseball a bouquet. Phil Rizzuto’s life was a melody. It is a lovely memory now.

Curt Smith is a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and host of WXXI Radio's syndicated "Perspectives," at 2 p.m. Saturday and 11 p.m. Tuesday. His views do not necessarily reflect the station's. He is the author of 12 books, his newest, "The Voice: Mel Allen’s Untold Story." He writes twice monthly for Messenger Post Newspapers. E-mail: curtsmith@netacc.net

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